Housing benefit fraud

keithj1983

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing in relation to the investigation being carried out against my mum (XXX XXX) in relation to her housing benefits. My mum is under investigation for failing to disclose other bank accounts in her name.

I would like to give you all of the background information that I hope will help with your investigation and conclude that although my mum did not disclose the other accounts it was unintentional and was not for any self gain.

In early 2009 I sold a property that I owned, on XXth May 2009 £XX was deposited into my HSBC bank account from my solicitor. On the XX May 2009 I went travelling around the world and at the time I was concerned about having such a large sum in my bank account due to potential fraud on my bank card while visiting countries I was unfamiliar with. As a result of this and the fact that I went travelling the day after the money arrived in my bank account I made the decision to deposit £60,000 into my mums bank account.

Please find enclosed my HSBC bank statement from the time which confirms the solicitor putting the money into my account and then me transferring the money to my mum. Please also find enclosed my passport which is date stamped which conicides with the dates of transferring the money and my travels.

Once my mum was in reciept of the money I instructed her to invest £45,000 for both mine and my young sons future. This money was put into a Scottish Widows account which cannot be accessed for a number of years (all the money remains in the account) and will be transferred back into my name at the earliest oppurtunity.

I also instructed my mum to put half of the remaing money (£7500) into an ISA account and the remaining half (£7500) into an online savings account. Please note that the whole £15000 is still in both of these accounts.

I understand that the investigation relates to my mum not disclosing other accounts she holds, I can honestly say the only reason for this is because the accounts were my accounts and all of the money in the accounts is my money. We both now know that this was not the correct thing to do and if we had the oppurtunity we would most certainitly disclose the accounts.

I hope that by being honest about everything (and it was just an error of judgement not for any gain) that you will take this into consideration while carrying out your investigations. I would also like to stress that all of the money (£60000) is my money and not my mums money which is evidenced by the fact that it all still remains some 5 years later.

If there is anything further you require from me then please do not hesitate to contact me on xxxxxxx.

Yours faithfully
Keith

Shelldean

remove you mobile number Keith x

StormyWeather_2

Remove your phone number from the post.

StormyWeather_2

x-posted with Shelldean.

Twisted_Cherry

keithj1983 wrote: »

Thank you, I'm going with my mum tomorrow so I will post tomorrow with an update if anyone is keen to see how this pans out.

Good Luck, keep us posted how your mum gets on!

stevemLS

keithj1983 wrote: »

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing in relation to the investigation being carried out against my mum (XXX XXX) in relation to her housing benefits. My mum is under investigation for failing to disclose other bank accounts in her name.

I would like to give you all of the background information that I hope will help with your investigation and conclude that although my mum did not disclose the other accounts it was unintentional and was not for any self gain.

In early 2009 I sold a property that I owned, on XXth May 2009 £XX was deposited into my HSBC bank account from my solicitor. On the XX May 2009 I went travelling around the world and at the time I was concerned about having such a large sum in my bank account due to potential fraud on my bank card while visiting countries I was unfamiliar with. As a result of this and the fact that I went travelling the day after the money arrived in my bank account I made the decision to deposit £60,000 into my mums bank account.

Please find enclosed my HSBC bank statement from the time which confirms the solicitor putting the money into my account and then me transferring the money to my mum. Please also find enclosed my passport which is date stamped which conicides with the dates of transferring the money and my travels.

Once my mum was in reciept of the money I instructed her to invest £45,000 for both mine and my young sons future. This money was put into a Scottish Widows account which is a fixed term investment and cannot be accessed for a number of years (all the money remains in the account [can you provide them with a statement]) and will be transferred back into my name at the earliest oppurtunity. At no time has the beneficial ownership of this money transferred to mum.

I also instructed my mum to put half of the remaing money (£7500) into an ISA account and the remaining half (£7500) into an online savings account. Please note that the whole £15000 is still in both of these accounts. There has been some activity in the savings account which took the form of short term loans to mum which has has on each occasion repaid and maintained the overall balance.

I understand that the investigation relates to my mum not disclosing other accounts she holds, I can honestly say the only reason for this is because the accounts were my accounts and all of the money in the accounts is my money. We both now know that this was not the correct thing to do and if we had the opportunity we would most certainly disclose the accounts. This was entirely a misunderstanding of what was required both on my part and that of mum, had we known then what we now know we would certainly not have arranged my affairs in this way.

I hope that by [STRIKE]being honest [/STRIKE] making a full and frank disclosure about everything (and it was just an error of judgement not for any gain) that you will take this into consideration while carrying out your investigations. I would also like to stress that all of the money (£60000) is my money and not my mums money which is evidenced by the fact that it all still remains some 5 years later.

If there is anything further you require from me then please do not hesitate to contact me on xxxxxxx. I am perfectly happy to be interviewed by your staff or make a formal statement if that would assist.

Yours faithfully
Keith

Keith

Hope you don't mind, I have made a couple of suggestions to what is a good letter.

Best wishes

Steve

GirlFromMars_2

... can I just add ...

... if the investigators do take the view that the beneficial ownership of this money passed to your mother, and she gives it back to you now, then she won't be able to claim housing benefit (or other means tested benefits) as giving away her own money would be counted as Deprivation of Capital ...

... it does sound like the money was always yours even though it has been in your mother's accounts, so I hope that the investigators can see this, and you can get back to a state where you each hold your own bank accounts!

superbigal36

I may have missed somewhere on this thread but have you been living with your mum since your return ?

Alter_ego

What I fail to understand is that if you wanted to protect your money from card fraud etc. Why didn't you simply open a savings account with your bank and transfer into that when the money came from your solicitor?
Your excuse that it came a day before you left is weak, you sold a house and must have known weeks in advance that the money would arrive.

Twisted_Cherry

Any updates on how the meeting went Keith?